Personal fashion accessories, such as purses and bags, are typically used to carry valuable items, such as wallets, cellular phones, and a multitude of other types of items. Due to the value of certain such items, purses are often the target of theft, which can occur when the owner of the purse is momentarily distracted or leaves the purse unattended, even for a very short period.
Various types of security features have been proposed in the past to help deter the loss of personal property to theft, but none has addressed the issue of maintaining the security of the contents of a purse without sacrificing the purse's utility or styling. One example of a safety oriented design for a purse can be seen in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2009/0090142, which is titled “Locking Bag with Locking Handle” (the '142 application). The device described in the '142 application includes a lock housing that is disposed within a pouch of a bag and arranged to separately lock a zipper head of the bag as well as one end of a carrying strap of the bag. Although the bag described in the various embodiments of the '142 patent might effectively deter the theft of the contents of the bag, the locking mechanism disposed within the bag detracts from the useful capacity of the pouch and increases the overall weight of the bag. Moreover, the separate locking capability of both the zipper head of the bag as well as the strap of the bag makes its use more complicated.
Another example of a proposed bag having security features can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,231,314 (the '314 patent). The '314 patent discloses a handbag having a locking device in which one end of the carry strap has a lock bolt thereon which inserts into a lock attached to the handbag adjacent one end of the handbag's access opening. A ring connected to the slide of a slide fastener of the bag is arranged to pass around a portion of the strap and thus prevent the opening of the bag when the strap is secured to the lock. However, the handbag disclosed in the '314 patent is prone to theft by cutting the strap of the handbag because it lacks adequate reinforcement.